In This Corner of the World
2016 · Directed by Sunao Katabuchi
Original language: Japanese
- animation
- drama
- war
- history
The story
Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…
What it’s like
Soft watercolour-like backgrounds and hand-drawn linework give this animated film the look of a faded wartime sketchbook, with pale greens of paddies and hills, washed greys of harbour cranes, and warm ochre kitchen light falling across tatami rooms. Its camera lingers on small domestic acts (shelling peas, drying clothes, stitching a sleeve) in patient, mostly static frames, while the score is gentle and sparse, built on piano and strings that drop away when the air-raid sirens arrive. Sounds of cicadas, rain on tiled roofs and distant aircraft carry much of the mood. The vibe is quiet, wistful and resilient, a slow-burning melancholy with flashes of humour and tenderness. It suits a rainy afternoon or a late evening alone, and it asks for patience, since its pace is unhurried and its emotional weight accumulates. Violence is present but restrained: air raids, bombing aftermath and the loss of family members are shown with understated sadness rather than gore, though the war's cost lands heavily. It is for viewers who want a grounded, humane portrait of domestic life under wartime strain, and a romance that grows in small, observed moments.
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